


"it looks good on you."

by clickingkeyboards



Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [32]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Clothing, F/F, Fluff, Mixups, Sibling Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21673015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: A mix-up leaves Daisy with only Hazel's Hong Kong dresses to wear to dinner.Canon EraWritten for the thirty-second prompt in the '100 ways to say "I love you"' prompt list by p0ck3tf0x on Tumblr.
Relationships: Daisy Wells/Hazel Wong
Series: one hundred ways to say 'i love you' [32]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533164
Kudos: 26





	"it looks good on you."

“Oh, gosh!” Daisy cries. “This is most inconvenient! How could I be so daft?”

“What is it?” I ask, freezing in the act of propping a book open with my knee while trying to follow its guide on how to tie a particularly complex bowtie.

My sister storms into my bedroom in only her underthings. “I’ve messed up my gowns!”

“How so?” I ask, politely averting my eyes away from her bosom and to my shoes.

“They are all at Uncle Felix’s flat!” she sulks. “When I picked up the case of our nice clothes, I thought it had  _ all  _ of our nice clothes but I hung them up in the wardrobe. All I have is Hazel’s Hong Kong things.”

Daisy and Hazel are on the case of ‘The Murder of the Dancing Angel’, which took place in the dancehall a mere five minutes walk away from our flat, where Harold tends the bar on the evenings I work late. At the beginning of the case, the two of us were suspects, though we pretended not to realise that we were under suspicion to be polite. I see why we were under suspicion: Harold uses his keys for the back door quite regularly to drag me there in the early hours of the morning. Though we could dance together in the comfort of our living room, being able to do it in a dancehall makes us feel as if we are allowed.

As if we could be allowed, one day.

The five-minute distance between ours and the dancehall means that Daisy and Hazel have been crashing at ours every night, occasionally making trips between here and Uncle Felix’s to bring clothing over. Including all of Hazel’s beautiful cheongsams, it seems.

“Well, wear one of Hazel’s Hong Kong dresses— one of her cheongsams. It isn’t so difficult,” I tell her, my eyes still fixed on my shoes as Daisy stamps her feet in one of her fearful strops.

After a long moment — during while Daisy fumes and sulks, and I wish she would leave because how sparsely she is dressed has been conditioned into me as something I should gawk at, even if she is my dear baby sister — she says, “That piece of your bowtie in your left-hand goes to the left and underneath, not to the right and over the front,” and leaves the room.

* * *

Ten minutes later, my waistcoat is buttoned, my lapels are righted, and I’ve found my damn turquoise pocket square. I knock on the door of the spare room and Daisy shouts, “Give me a minute! This damn collar is choking me.”

“Oh, come here, let me fix it,” I say, rapping on the door again.

School has made us both so modest. Cautious. Terrified. It is ridiculous, how afraid we are to be siblings.

Daisy shoves open the door and stands there looking a dreadful sulk, all stroppy slouch and folded arms. When she straightens up — to stop my laughing — I properly see the dress. It is a beautiful aquamarine with golden and white blossom patterns. The dress is oddly… well, not English. No petticoats or cardigans or pearls chasing along the lines of horrifyingly modern low necklines.

“Well, let’s find you a coat so no one tries to slaughter you as we go down the street,” I say, smiling down at my sulky little sister. “You look… you look lovely, Squashy.”

“Fuck off, Squinty.”

Ah. There my dear sister is. “Your earrings are on the dining table.”

* * *

We walk down the street arm-in-arm, chuckling in low tones about Harold’s new glasses that he insists are the right prescription but really are not, as he is forever squinting because they are not strong enough.

“Honestly, you are well-off enough to procure a pair that are his prescription!” she says as we arrive at the resultant we have a table booked at with the others. By ‘the others’, I mean Uncle Felix and Aunt Lucy, who have come from their flag across the city; George, who has come from his home; Hazel and Alexander, who have come from their ‘date’ (investigation); and Harold who has come straight from work and looks positively harrowed.

He arrives at the same time as us and graciously hands over his coat and briefcase to the woman in the cloakroom. “Tough day?” I ask, squeezing his shoulder in our version of a kiss of greeting.

“One could say.” He smiles tiredly at me. “Honestly, students are simply  _ horrors  _ — apologises, Daisy dear.”

“Oh, it’s alright,” she says, handing over her coat and exposing the dress. 

Harold blinks, looking my sister up and down in a vaguely shocked manner. “Daisy dear, what are you wearing?”

“None of my gowns are at yours,” she sulks, and I laugh, placing a hand on her shoulder so she stands upright again, her golden hair in its wonderful updo.

With a chuckle, he says, “Reservations under  _ Mountfitchet _ , please?”

We are lead away. 

* * *

At the table, Hazel is in absolute stitches from something George is telling her as he awkwardly holds a glass of wine in his hand.

“Alright, bub?” Harold asks. 

He looks up and nods with a scowl. “I ran into some trouble on the Underground. Some middle-aged man spat at me so I swore at him, so I got clouted in the cheek with a briefcase.” He moves the glass away and I see a purpling bruise forming against his dark skin. “I’m trying to calm the bruising.”

“Gosh, how foul!” Harold exclaims, rushing over to where he sits and inspecting his cheek.

Hazel is gawking at my sister. While Hazel wears a lovely English dress of rose-coloured velvet, Daisy’s Hong Kong dress is astonishingly out of place. Still, she stares and goggles, mouth opening and closing before she gulps, her eyes trailing in a guiltily languid line down Daisy’s body before snapping by back to her eyes. “It looks good on you,” she manages.

Alexander casts George a wide-eyed look. George deadpans, “You didn’t notice before? You are an idiot, Alex.”

Hazel and Daisy are still locked in an impressively long stare. Then Uncle Felix coughs and they leap away from each other’s gazes, and Aunt Lucy laughs.

Harold takes a seat beside me and we watch the scene play out.

The staring barely ceases, only pauses. 


End file.
